Native Reef Tanks

[BRISK495]

Hello- I was wandering if anyone has or tried a nano reef from a specific native area? I was wandering if you had any successes and pics. It would be interesting to hear what tanks people have that would come to actually duplicating a native ecosystem.

[skylsdale]

You mean biotope setups? I can't help but do much else. I've currently got some LR and a sixline wrasse in my tank, so I can either go for a Red Sea setup or Indo-Pacific. That is the fish's distribution, and it would personally drive me crazy to go another direction. I still get irritated every time I see a Royal Gramma surrounding by a bunch of softies from the Indo-Pacific.

 

You won't see much of those types of displays; people tend to prefer the hodge-podge fireplace mantel displays better. A few books touch on biotopes, however. John Tullock's Natural Reef Aquariums touches on a few, and Fossa and Nilsen's Reef Secrets has some pretty good in-depth information on biotopes as well. Other than that, you'll have to figure out which area or type of reef environment you want to replicate and do the research.

[onthefly]

The guy I got my SPS from set up a 100ga with only Pacific species......

[adinsxq]

did you see acoustic's tidepool thread? i think a southern california tank would be really nice - colonies of strawberry anemones, red macro algaes, and a hoard of shrimp. fun stuff

[BRISK495]

Actually, I did see that thread....i ll have to take a look at it again...I just thought it would be interesting to keep inverts/fishes/corals/ all from the same area...Keep one or two larger corals as centerpeices and have the fishes associated with them....and inverts etc....it would be neat I think

[adinsxq]

pacific tank

[Bikelock]

I was thinking about doing one that was all from the gulf. The local marine biology research center has tanks set up with all local species. It is not as colorful as our hybred tanks but very cool to be able to study the creatures instead of just a passing glimps when you are snorkling.

[skylsdale]

I'm attempting something along these lines. Up until last night everything was in an AGA 30 gal tank (36x12x17) but I moved it all into a 20H. I did this because the budget is really tight for this thing and flow and light spread will just be easier in a shorter tank...although the visual affect is all but lost.

 

Anyway, the plan is for the rock profile to be pretty subdued, rising no more than 1/3 of the way for the bottom, with small rock piles and plenty of rubble. This is to simulate a back reef type environment with plenty of light and a little more slack wave motion...although it's still there, obviously. Pocilliporids are pretty abundant in these areas, and that's what the tank will consist of, as well as many of the little critters that inhabit the branches. The goal is to only have 1-3 different species, and just let them have free reign of the tank to form a big coral head.

 

It doesn't look as striking in the 20 gal--the rock ends up looking too high and the aquascaping ends up like everyone else's. My goal was to have a large pillar in the back right and a smaller pile in the front left, attached by a small jetty of rock, but with such a small space the depth isn't pulled off very well. I like to have multiple viewing zones in my tank, so you can look in through the side and see something just as interesting as the front....not just the back of some rock wall. The current fish is a single sixline wrasse, but I'm not sure if it will stay or not. I might actually swap it out for 5 chromis--it's very cool to see them hiding out in the branches of coral colonies. In the next couple of days I should be picking up a little tubastrea colony, which will be placed under a little overhang and into a little cave. I would really like this thing to spread and eventually colonize in some of the more cryptic areas that will be formed beneath the pocillopora.

 

As for other ideas that would be cool, I actually think something like a 55 gal tank with a few show Sarcophytons would be cool. I would have some powerheads at one end forming some laminar flow, but a SCWD attached to give a little extra motion. Then introduce a number of domino damsels (they associate with leathers when they are young, much like the clown/anemone relationship). Sounds sooo simple, yet I think it would be a very cool tank.

[Reefer_Buddha]

Ive seen some tanks set up to emulate a river stream and mangroves those to me are the hard core eco systems. Self sustaining and really cool.